My Everyday Jesus Christ

My Everyday Jesus Christ
Let's see. Whom do I admire? Well, the Man, of course.

B. F. Skinner

Of course, of course. But why? Because he was the best theoretician in the field, by far. Because he could deal with the most complex of issues without slipping into a mentalistic mire, never losing his foothold on the high ground of objective data language. And because he provided objective data language. And because he provided the framework, the system in which it all fits. Every little bit of it fits right in there. Nothing left out; and if there is, we'll take care of it in the next few years. Without him, you and I would still be giving Rorschach tests or worrying about habit strength and anticipatory goal gradients.

However, I'm not sure Skinner was sufficiently tuned in to what are the actual reinforcers that control behavior. For instance, a whole generation of deadly boring programmed texts resulted from his assumption that learning was a sufficient reinforcer. And he seems to have little appreciation for the crucial role of social reinforcement, whether it be in the lives of scientists, Walden Twoers, or the person on the street, perhaps because addiction to social reinforcement can so easily lead us astray. But ignoring it or denying it won't disappear it.

Therefore, I'd hate to trust him to sell a used car, let alone something as controversial as behaviorism. So that brings us to another of my heroes.

Dale Carnegie
That old used-car salesman, par excellence. What Carnegie contributed to behavior analysis is his deep understanding of the actual parameter values that are most effective when placed in Skinner's functional relations. He understands what really are the reinforcers and aversive stimuli in the everyday lives of everyday people, like you and me and him and Skinner and Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. We all knew that to err was aversive. But it took Carnegie to point out just how aversive . So aversive that no one ever admits an error, not if they can help it. And if you force them to, all you've done is pair yourself irrevocably with a very aversive event. So aversive that even John Dillenger, the notorious bank robber and killer, felt his only problem was that no one really understood or appreciated him. Carnegie realized the enormous capacity we have for rationalization. And in watching the everyday behavior and practice of most of us behavior analysts, it looks like we have a long way to go to catch up with this old used-car salesman.

But you know, most of us don't trust Carnegie to sell behaviorism, because he's tainted with his used-car associations. We need someone who's using his insights into human nature to help save humanity. And that brings me to still another hero, a man who has built the real life community that most resembles the fabled Walden II.